Egregious (Reversal of Royalties) And Urgent

What is the point of "selling" a book to a reader, if the middleman (an Amazon company, for instance) actively encourages the reader to return that book --after reading it-- for a full refund or free exchange for another book, at the expense of the author?

That's not a "sale", it's a merry go round.

Read all about it.

https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/sign-our-letter-and-tell-audible-to-stop-charging-authors-for-returns/

Egregious! 

Please read the full letter and  sign the petition.

https://www.authorsguild.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/AG.Audibledemand-collective.11.19.FINAL_.pdf

How can an author make a living if book sales can be cancelled, and book revenues can be clawed back up to 365 days after the assumed sale?  

 

How can an author plan her finances, or project what her tax obligation will be?  However, assuming that one has something to leave, or something to invest, or a rollover IRA, this is the time to do some urgent tax planning.  One probably has until December 10th, 2020 to get ones financial ducks in a row.

Three links:

https://www.ml.com/articles/tax-tips-that-could-save-you-money.html?pageurl=peter.shunyia

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/hobbyist-vs-pro-tax-guidelines-for-book-authors-2799859

 

https://www.michaelbest.com/Newsroom/250409/Estate-and-Tax-Planning-After-the-2020-Electionnbspndash

While this writer cannot offer financial advice (not being qualified), the most interesting advice might be to transfer one's biggest losers into either a Roth or a GRAT. 

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/

 

Revision Habits

I've just finished the second revision stage of my current work in progress, a light paranormal romance novella, a loose sequel to two previous novellas from the Wild Rose Press. All authors probably have their own individual approaches to self-editing within a few broad categories. Some writing mavens advise a separate editing once-over for each level of potentially needed changes. For instance, one for major plot and character issues, one for style, syntax, word choice, and grammar, and finally one for spelling, typos, punctuation, and other minor errors. A few seem to expect even more rounds of revision. If some writers strictly follow that advice, no wonder they may take years to finish a book.

Such writing mentors probably tend to be the same people who advise us not to bother with granular stylistic and proofreading changes on the first revision or two, because we'd be likely to waste time changing passages that won't even appear in the finished product. That may be good advice for "pantsers." I outline extensively, deal with plot and character difficulties at that stage, and excise elements that don't fit before the actual first-draft composition begins. Also, I edit as I go, at least on the level of sentence structure and word choice. This habit makes me a slower writer than I want to be, but on the other hand, it means I end up with a fairly polished first draft. After all this time, I really can't help doing it that way; my habits were formed over decades as an academic writer and more than twenty years employed as a proofreader.

Personally, I couldn't bear the waste of time involved in doing a separate pass for each level of revision, from global down to nitpicky. I tackle them all at once, sort of. Again, I probably couldn't force myself to do otherwise anyway. If I decided to start with overarching plot and character evaluation, along the way I would inevitably notice minor points that needed fixing. My usual procedure, after the revising-in-progress first draft phase, is to let the work rest for about a week, then read through it and make any corrections that occur to me. Next, I send sections to my online critique group and the whole thing to a critique partner for comment. After addressing all their suggestions, I leave the piece to sit for a few more days. Then I give it a final pass before submitting to the target market. Incidentally, the function that underlines misspellings in red is permanently activated on this computer. That way, I can't miss typos, as might happen if I depended on running spellcheck, with the risk of absentmindedly blowing right past an erroneous word.

Many writing authorities have strong opinions about how many drafts a work should go through before it's ready to submit. Do the terms "first draft, second draft," etc., have any fixed meaning in the era of computer word processing, when previous versions disappear into the ether unless they're printed before changes are made? A draft is an even more nebulous concept for someone who revises in the process of composition, like me. The document I send to a critique group or partner is more like "draft one and a half" than a definable whole number.

I've often thought how unfortunate it is for future collectors and critics that most authors nowadays won't leave successive drafts for scholars to study and compare to the finished work.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Fictional Science or Scientific Fiction Part 1 - Stephen Hawking

Fictional Science or Scientific Fiction

Part 1

Stephen Hawking 

This blog is about Alien Romance, or human/non-human Soul Mates - Love at first sight, and Love Conquers All.

It is all about the essence suffusing the state of mind where, somehow, what others think is crazy and unreal is actually perceived in a new, different way, from a new perspective.

Romance is a state of mind, and many writers on the subject hold that the perception of another person available in a state of "Romance" is actually more accurate than the everyday assessment anyone might make of that person.

One of the ingredients in Alien Romance is the idea of a non-human species, evolved on some other planet around some other star, either coming here -- or humans going there.

For human and Alien to meet (for a rousing good Romance Novel) you have to postulate a transport mechanism.

Yes, Stephen Hawking Lied To Us All About How Black Holes Decay

These days, it's not enough to do what Star Trek did and just "say" that the ship is propelled into "Warp Drive" using engines that have to contain a (non-existent) substance you say is Dilithium Crystals.

Too many people know too much.  Things that used to be available to learn only in University post-Graduate seminars are now taught in High School -- even Elementary School or Middle School.

So here is an article (with animated illustrations) from Forbes Magazine that shows how currently known science tosses out very firmly established knowledge to chase after something new.

Experts can be wrong - or misunderstood.

Authorities should be believed only after proving what they say to you, independently, for yourself.

One of the items I remember from A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME by Stephen Hawking is the firm assertion that interstellar travel is impossible. (well, we've heard that for decades).

But he had the math to prove it.

But it's OK because there are no other living civilizations out there, anyway.  Math proved that.

Guess what? Now math (with new, different assumptions) indicates there may be over 30 civilizations out there.

So it's not OK that we can't go there. If "they" can go around, so can we.  Even if it's impossible.

Now comes an astrophysicist thinking around the edges of Hawking's theory.

Black Holes and the fabric of space-time, the nature of reality and existence, are the sum and substance of the reasons why "space travel is impossible" - but it turns out, maybe that's just not the case.

As usual with Science - it is partly fiction.  Math is the language of Science, but to do the Math you need to input assumptions - you need to postulate and hypothesize.

If you change the input assumptions, the output changes.

Here is an article in the widely respected magazine, Forbes, posted at Forbes.com -- in July 2020.

Yes, Stephen Hawking Lied To Us All About How Black Holes Decay
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/07/09/yes-stephen-hawking-lied-to-us-all-about-how-black-holes-decay/

--------quote------
None of this should serve to take away from Hawking's tremendous accomplishments on this front. It was he who realized the deep connections between black hole thermodynamics, entropy, and temperature. It was he who put together the science of quantum field theory and the background of curved space near a black hole. And it was he who — quite correctly, mind you — figured out the properties and energy spectrum of the radiation that black holes would produce. It is absolutely fitting that the way black holes decay, via Hawking radiation, bears his name.

But the flawed analogy he put forth in his most famous book, A Brief History of Time, is not correct. Hawking radiation is not the emission of particles and antiparticles from the event horizon. It does not involve an inward-falling pair member carrying negative energy. And it shouldn't even be exclusive to black holes. Stephen Hawking knew how black holes truly decay, but he told the world a very different, even incorrect, story. It's time we all knew the truth instead.
---------end quote--------

This does not mean you're free to postulate just anything convenient to tell your story.

Roddenberry had to do that, but you must not if you're writing a novel (not a screenplay).

As I noted, too many people know too much for you to flimflam them. They will disbelieve the Romance if you fudge the Science.  If they disbelieve the Romance, they will not believe the fiction.

But you have to fictionalize your science, while at the same time you make your fiction scientific.

Science fiction is the recreation of scientists.  Romance is the recreation of spirit.  You have to create the spirit of science using the art of wordsmithing.

Read this Forbes article - then read Hawking's book(s).

https://smile.amazon.com/Brief-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553380168/

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Sudden Death

If you do a DuckDuckGo search, you will have a hard time finding a definition of "sudden death" that involves bad luck and sportsmanship... or lack thereof. You will need to include a term such as "playoff" in your query.

Today, I am writing about the last gasp of the CASE Act, which has been apparently successfully smothered to death by being sat on by Oregon senator Ron Wyden and needs emergency resuscitation; the Legacy Kit from the SFWA; the focus at Authors Guild on the Death of the Author (owing to rampant overreach by internet giants), and the hidden perils of promoting ones book or other product through illegal contests involving luck or minimal "skill".

You see, it is all copyright-related, but grim, nonetheless.

If you follow this blog and do not support the SFWA, perhaps you should make joining a New Year's Resolution. It is a very useful professional association, and the dues are tax deductible.  They have just published a Legacy Kit, which is a wonderful, 28-page resource for authors interested in being prepared for their own sudden death and authorial immortality.

The Authors Guild is hosting a webinar on November 17th, called "The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling To Survive In The Age Of Billionaires And Big Tech".

The blurb:

"In the age of Big Tech and the gig economy, how can writers and artists survive? It’s never been easier to publish a book or make your art available to the public, but at the same time, the pay has never been lower."

Of course, the pay will never improve as long as writers have rights without meaningful recourse to the courts and the ability enforce their rights.  Which is why the Copyright Alliance is encouraging one final push by all creators and artists to implore their senators to pass the CASE Act, SW.1273.

Their blurb:

“Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2019” (the CASE Act) — a bill that would create a “small claims court” within the U.S. Copyright Office to handle copyright infringement claims from individual creators and small businesses that cannot afford to defend themselves in federal court."

Their link:

https://p2a.co/21l3imn

Desperate to survive financially, many authors use legally questionable methods to promote their books, including illegal sweepstakes and contests that lack the fig leaf of legality. When the "skill" involved in a "contest of skill" amounts to little more than figuring out 2+2, it is little more than a game of chance. Depending where a contestant lives, a "consideration" (price of entry) might only be a "like" or a "follow" or a review on social media, but those things are "of value" to the author and therefore, to stay on the straight and narrow, the author must allow would-be winners of the prize, whatever it is, to enter in an alternative manner without providing the review or like or follow.

There is a lot more to it.  Legal bloggers Kasey Boucher and Matthew D. Stein, for the law firm Pierce Atwood LLP explain their top Ten Common Mistakes When Conducting Sweepstakes Or Contest Promotions On Social Media.

Lexology link:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=5c893764-2c1c-415b-b4cc-ed7046356137&utm_source=lexology+daily+newsfeed&utm_medium=html+email&utm_campaign=lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=lexology+daily+newsfeed+2020-11-13&utm_term=

 

Original link:

https://www.pierceatwood.com/alerts/ten-common-mistakes-when-conducting-sweepstakes-or-contest-promotions-social-media

If you don't believe that you've been doing it all wrong these past many years, and would like a second legal opinion, or are especially concerned about Facebook, legal blogger David O. Klein of Klein Moynihan Turco LLP has just the ticket for you....metaphorically speaking with Planning On Running A Facebook Sweepstakes? Here's What You Need To Know.

Lexology link: 

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a54dab43-016a-4f40-a6ce-f794a02142d8

Original link:

https://kleinmoynihan.com/facebook-sweepstakes-what-you-need-to-know/

 

All the best,

Rowena Cherry   

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

More on AI

Cory Doctorow's latest LOCUS column continues his topic from last month, the sharp divide between the artificial intelligence of contemporary technology and the self-aware computers of science fiction. He elaborates on his arguments against the possibility of the former's evolving into the latter:

Past Performance

He explains current machine learning "as a statistical inference tool" that "analyzes training data to uncover correlations between different phenomena." That's how an e-mail program predicts what you're going to type next or a search engine guesses your question from the initial words. An example he analyzes in some detail is facial recognition. Because a computer doesn't "know" what a face is but only looks for programmed patterns, it may produce false positives such as "doorbell cameras that hallucinate faces in melting snow and page their owners to warn them about lurking strangers." AI programs work on a quantitative rather than qualitative level. As remarkably as they perform the functions for which they were designed, "statistical inference doesn’t lead to comprehension, even if it sometimes approximates it." Doctorow contrasts the results obtained by mathematical analysis of data with the synthesizing, theorizing, and understanding processes we think of as true intelligence. He concludes that "the idea that if we just get better at statistical inference, consciousness will fall out of it is wishful thinking. It’s a premise for an SF novel, not a plan for the future."

While I'd like to believe a sufficiently advanced supercomputer with more interconnections, "neurons," and assimilation of data than any human brain could hold might awaken to self-awareness, like Mike in Heinlein's THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS, I must admit Doctorow's argument is highly persuasive. Still, people do anthropomorphize their technology, even naming their Roomba vacuum cleaners. (I haven't done that. Our Roomba is a low-end, fairly dumb model. Its intelligence is limited to changing direction when it bumps into obstacles and returning to its charger when low on power, which I never let it run long enough to do. But nevertheless I give the thing pointless verbal commands on occasion. It doesn't listen to me much less than the cats do, after all.) People carry on conversations with Alexa and Siri. I enjoy remembering a cartoon I saw somewhere of a driver simultaneously listening to the GPS apps on both the car's system and the cell phone. The two GPS voices are arguing with each other about which route to take.

Remember Eliza, the computer therapist program? She was invented in the 1960s, and supposedly some users mistook for a human psychologist. You can try her out here:

Eliza

As the page mentions, the dialogue goes best if you limit your remarks to talking about yourself. When I tried to engage her in conversation about the presidential election, her lines quickly devolved into, "Do you have any psychological problems?" (Apparently commenting that one loathes a certain politician is a red flag.) So these AI therapists don't really pass the Turing test. I've read that if you state to one of them, for instance, "Einstein says everything is relative," it will probably respond, "Tell me more about your family." Many years ago, when the two youngest of our sons were preteens, we acquired a similar program, very simple, which one communicated with by typing, and it would type a reply that the computer's speaker would also read out loud. The kids had endless fun writing sentences such as, "I want [long string of numbers] dollars," and listening to the computer voice retort with something like, "I am not here to fulfill your need for ten quintillion, four quadrillion, nine trillion, fifty billion, one hundred million, two thousand, one hundred and forty-one dollars."

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

NetGalley And Small Publishers

NetGalley And Small Publishers

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

In 2012, I signed up for NetGalley when they were a startup, just garnering a list of Traditional Publishers they could supply reviewers for. ( https://netgalley.com )

They have grown and grown and become a staple of the reviewing industry.  Their rules are a little complex and involuted for qualifying for free ebook copies of forthcoming titles. They have time-limits (which I don't like) and they want a review posted on their site, as well as wherever you actually review or discuss books.

As readers, we discuss books everywhere -- and these days there are a lot of everywhere -- LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and on and on!

Recently, PenguinRandomHouse, which has been supplying NetGalley copies for convenience, has shifted to emphasizing NetGalley as a source, so I refreshed my profile on NetGalley and drew down a Kindle copy of C. J. Cherryh's new Foreigner novel DIVERGENCE.

We'll discuss that soon, but it is Book 21 in a (terrific) Series, so if you haven't caught up, you have some time. Start with FOREIGNER -- jumping into the middle of this series can be confusing.

Today, I just wanted to alert you all that I'm using NetGalley as a source, and it has changed as the publishing industry has grown and diversified.

There are publishers from a number of different countries, and divisions of the large publishers.  There are publishers you've never heard of (possible markets), and early alerts on popular books.

They have a list of most-requested titles.

They let you "favorite" publishers to get sub-sets of titles.

They have sub-sets by genre.

And publishers get to pre-approve you so you can grab a title as soon as they post it.

I like reading paper books (a lot), but I also enjoy having Kindle editions I can resize the type, make notes, drop bookmarks, and store massive amounts of books without bookshelves collapsing.  I don't think the Netgalley title, even as a Kindle, will let my notes be "shared" in the Goodreads social networking platform.

I still don't like Kindle's filing system - I lose books in the huge list. Putting them in groups is extra work.

Downloads from NetGalley in Kindle format can be "sent to Kindle" but end up in "Documents" instead of the list of books -- I expect I will lose track of titles I want to discuss here because of that awkward filing system nobody likes.

But publishing has changed - so we change to match.

Here's what has not changed in publishing.

It is still a horse-race.  It is all about speed.

Whether a title or series survives the brutal speed test to become a "classic" depends on getting lots of reviews up FAST - right during the few weeks after publication.

Without the limits of paper-book-shelves-in-stores (slots), there is no REASON for this anymore. It's an archaic artifact of Traditional Publishing which will likely disappear in the next few years.

It's all about ripping your attention away from whatever you want to do and getting you hooked on paying attention to what they can make a profit from.

What publishers (and their editors) add in value, that you pay for at $10 for a Kindle edition, is the publisher's ability to sort the slush pile, and resort the surviving titles into genres, creating sequences of books that are "the same but different" -- giving you the anticipation of a guaranteed good read.

So beyond editing for consistency, continuity, clarity, and beyond copyediting for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and homonyms - improper word usage, and punctuation (especially of dialogue) - publishers get paid for sorting a few precisely similar items from a whole pile of dissimilar items.  It's a lot of work.

NetGalley also connects reviewers profiles to Goodreads and Twitter, blogs and LinkedIn.

They are building a high-tech sorting net that will, one day, enable readers to be certain they are not wasting money on a title they just won't like.

Long way to go, but I think it is happening right before our eyes.  I'm impressed with what they've done in just 8 years.

I can imagine where the new "reviewer" tools industry will be in another 8 years.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

When Is A Mark Not A Mark?

Perhaps you remember the homophone riddle from your childhood: "When is a door not a door?"

Here is a link to some riddles to help small children develop critical thinking and healthy skepticism for the meaning of the written word: https://www.fatherly.com/play/the-best-riddles-for-kids-not-confusing/

For this writer, this week, some of the most interesting legal blogs were about trademarks, hence, "When is a Mark not a Mark?" There's not snappy answer, but increasingly, it looks like ".SUCKS", "PAST PRESENT FUTURE", "You're fired!" and "TEXAS LOVE" are not markable ... trademarkable, that is.

Legal blogger Kimberly M. Maynard, representing Frankfurt Klein and Selz PC discusses a  possibly precedent-setting decision by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. The TTAB ruled that a generic top level domain name is the back-end part of an address and not a distinguishing mark that any reasonable potential customer would identify with a service.

So, "dot sucks" might make a mark (in the law enforcement sense of the word "a mark") think of a sordid service, but it's too much of a stretch for the TTAB to agree that the common man would see "dot sucks" and jump to the conclusion that this is an obvious and alluring and highly reliable domain name registration service.

The puns are mine. For a comprehensive and sober analysis of why "dot sucks" cannot get a mark to apply, read the original.

Link to the original article:  

https://ipandmedialaw.fkks.com/post/102gjcn/ttab-refuses-registration-of-sucks

Jeffrey H. Brown, blogging for Michael Best & Friedrich LLP opens with a knock-out pun to explain why a boxing champion cannot have legal dibs on "PAST PRESENT FUTURE" as a trademark for T-shirts.

Lexology link:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=5bb2f300-7343-4787-b7bf-689c82d2ebb8

 

Link to the original article:

https://insights.michaelbest.com//post/102gjhw/he-may-be-undefeated-in-the-ring-but-floyd-mayweather-got-knocked-out-at-the-tra

When it is "commonplace" it does not work as a trademark. It might be ones own favorite slogan, or one widely used by others to promote other goods or to express other sentiments, but increasingly, one may not trademark a slogan unless the trademark is very narrow and specific.

For Marks, Works and Secrets, (an Akerman LLP blog),  bloggers Ira S. Sacks and Rachel  B. Rudensky  ask (in part) "...when does a slogan function as a mark?"

Link to the original:

https://www.marksworksandsecrets.com/2020/11/slogans-as-marks-when-does-a-slogan-function-as-a-mark/#page=1

It's an important article that brings clarity to a confusing topic. No writer relishes the idea of certain words or expressions being unavailable for use or book titles, and if "TEXAS LOVE" is available for sale on some item of apparel, that does not put a writer in jeopardy if she writes a book called "Texas Love".  We need to know that stuff!

There's the bottom line. Descriptive use of a registered trademark is not infringement. You can write its name. 

For Harness Dickey and Pierce PLC, blogger Bryan K. Wheelock examines the use of common dictionary words in good faith, and in a descriptive capacity to communicate ones own ideas or products or services rather than to trade on someone else's mark.

https://www.hdp.com/blog/2020/11/04/descriptive-use-of-a-registered-trademark-is-not-infringement/

When is a door not a door? When it's ajar! ("A jar".)

All the best,

Rowena Cherry   

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/